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Drake

 

 

 

Roger slammed a newspaper on my desk in front of me. “What the hell is this?”

“Good fucking morning to you too,” I muttered as I snatched up today’s broadsheet. My eyes fell upon the headline and my blood turned to ice in my veins.

 

The Shocking Truth About Billionaire Drake Blackwell’s Wife!

The mysterious Noriko Blackwell has been uncovered! Mrs. Blackwell is a poor teacher’s daughter from rural Japan. She agreed to marry the arrogant billionaire, Drake Blackwell, in an arranged marriage in order to pay for her father’s cancer treatments. Now that her father is close to death, Drake has locked her in her bedroom at Blackwell Manor in order to prevent her from returning to her homeland to see him. Mrs. Blackwell has sent out an urgent call for her release. This reporter can only imagine what kind of abuse is happening in the cursed Blackwell Manor. Like father, like son.

 

“Is this true? You paid her to marry you? You’re keeping her locked up?”

I drew my gaze up to Roger, my mind gaping open like a fish. How did this happen? Someone told the papers. Who? Who told the papers?

There were only four people who knew the entire story contained in the article.

Me, and I didn’t fucking spill my guts to a reporter.

Isabelle, who would never allow this to get out. The same went for my lawyer who drew up the marriage contract. Both of them were under an ironclad confidentiality contract. Neither of them were stupid enough to burn their bridges with me like this.

That left…Noriko.

I sank back into my chair. Noriko told them. She betrayed me.

“You know what?” Roger said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “I don’t care what the truth is. What the fuck are we going to do about it?” He ran his hands through his hair. “Your reputation in this business is everything, you know that. No one is going to want to do business with an abusive husband.”

“I am not abusive!” I slammed my fist against the desk, making everything rattle. “I’m insulted at the suggestion.”

Roger stabbed his finger at the article. “You are keeping your fucking wife locked up.”

My blood ran cold.

I was keeping my wife locked up.

I was an abusive husband.

No. No, no, no. That wasn’t true. I never hit her. Never. I was not like my father.

Roger pushed back off the desk, swear words spit-firing out of his mouth. “Jesus fucking Christ, everything we’ve worked for, Drake.”

“I know,” I said quietly.

“We’ll run damage control. We’ll send out a press release denying everything in this article. We need to get you and your wife out at a public event, a charity event, any fucking event. You two need to be sweet-as-pie, so-cute-I’m-going-to-barf, can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other lovebirds. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” I said woodenly. I let Roger take control of this situation because nothing in my mind was working.

She betrayed me. My wife—my wife—betrayed me. I couldn’t even muster any anger at her. I had failed.

“Hey, look at me.”

My eyes snapped to Roger, who was leaning towards me, his palms flat on the desk. His eyes drilled into mine. “Can you make this happen? Can you be loving with your wife in public?”

Noriko would never agree to it.

Unless…unless I promised to let her go back to Japan.

“Well, Drake? Can you?”

What would it be, Drake? Your company and reputation…or your wife?

Loretta’s words came back to me. “Let her go. If she is yours—truly yours—she will come back.”

I had no choice. This wasn’t only my livelihood at stake. Every single employee in my company would suffer if my reputation did.

I had to promise to send Noriko back to Japan if she pretended to love me for one night, for one public event.

She’d do it even though she hated me. Because she loved her father more. I never had a chance.

“She’ll do it.”

Roger let out a huge sigh of relief. “Thank God. I’ll get our PR department to draw up the press release now. I’ll get Sam to find a suitable event to RSVP to for…say, tonight?”

I nodded, numb through my pain. Roger left me alone with my demons, slamming the door to my office shut behind him.

Tonight, Noriko and I would pretend to be happy. We’ll hold hands and I’ll wave to the reporters on the red carpet and she’ll smile at me like I am her world.

God, it would kill me, having her hands on me and knowing it was all lies.

Hadn’t it all been lies anyway?

My heart crumpled. I didn’t want her to pretend.

I wanted her to love me.

I needed her to love me. I needed it so hard it hurt. My heart physically ached.

I’d destroyed every chance I had with her. It was clear, written across these pages in black and white.

I’d lost her. I’d only myself to blame. All I had left were pieces of this façade, shards of our sham, blurry dabs of chaos.

And tonight. My one last night with her.

I stared up at the Monet hanging on the opposite wall and my heart stabbed again. I remembered being with Noriko at the charity auction, sliding my hands around her waist and whispering into her ear, sharing our thoughts on painting. I think I started to love her then.

As I gazed at the Monet this time, I couldn’t see my way out of the chaos, out of the mess I’d fallen into.

Pain tore through my heart so hard this time it made me cry out.

Oh God. It wasn’t just from a broken heart. This was real pain.

“Sam,” I croaked out as I stabbed at the intercom with one hand, gripping my chest with the other. “Help. Me.”

My door slammed open and Sam rushed in. “Oh my God, Drake.” She ran up to my desk. The next second she was on my phone, talking to emergency services, shouting out the address. “Get here, right now!” She slammed the phone down in its cradle.

Pain throbbed through my left side. I crumpled over my thighs, no energy left to keep myself on my chair. “Don’t tell Noriko…don’t want…her to see…” I collapsed onto the carpet, the smell of carpet cleaner hitting my nose.

This was it. I was going to die.

You were right, Dr. Tao. It is my heart that will kill me.

Even as my vision started to dim, death seemed to bring a clarity to my eyes. All of my accomplishments, my accolades, all of my money, my beautiful house and my cars and pretty toys, didn’t mean shit. These things dissipated like mist in the wake of the last sharp, bright seconds of my life.

Who did I love?

Noriko.

Who loved me?

No one.

Why?

Because I thought private jets and jewels and artists’ studios were enough to buy her love. I thought the obligation of marriage, the birth of a baby, the contract we both signed, would be enough to cement us together.

I was wrong.

I thought I had been loving her.

I was wrong.

I thought she was mine.

I was wrong.

They said your life flashed before your eyes before you died. For me, it was only the last four months of my life unfolding before me, where Noriko was a part of it. All those chances I blew to forge a real connection with her shone clearly like diamonds, mapping out a path of gems I had just walked past. If only I had seen them for what they were. If only I had stopped to pick them up.

But it was too late.

It was all too late.

Blackness soaked up through my extremities and I felt death closing in. I could barely hear Sam crying at me to stay with her.

All I could see was Noriko’s face. I wished I could have told her that I was sorry. Despite our secrets she parted with, I still loved her. For the first time in my life I understood what that meant.

Her happiness means more to me than my own.

I accepted my death because my death would make her free. With her freedom, I would finally make her happy.

My broken heart beat once more for her.